Francis Spufford

Francis Spufford is an English author, born in 1964, who is primarily known for his non-fiction works. However, he has always been a storyteller at heart, using storytelling techniques in his non-fiction writing. Spufford studied English at Cambridge University and began his writing career as a non-fiction author, with a strong element of storytelling in his works. His early books include 'I May Be Some Time', 'The Child That Books Built', and 'Backroom Boys'. He also edited two volumes of polar literature.

In 2010, Spufford began drawing closer to writing novels, starting with 'Red Plenty', which explored the Soviet Union around the time of Sputnik using a mixture of fiction and history. After a slight detour into religious controversy with 'Unapologetic', he arrived definitely at fiction in 2016 with 'Golden Hill'. This historical novel about eighteenth century New York was written in the style of an eighteenth century novel, with hyperactive dialogue and extravagant language. 'Golden Hill' won the Costa First Novel Award for 2017 and three other prizes, and was shortlisted for three more. Spufford's next novel, 'Light Perpetual' (2021), was deliberately plainer, about the lives that five London children might have had if they hadn't been killed in 1944 by a German rocket. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Spufford has been a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Anglia Ruskin University from 2005 to 2007, and has taught at Goldsmiths College in London on the M.A. in Creative and Life Writing since 2008. He is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College. His next book, 'Cahokia Jazz', is a noir detective novel set in the 1922 of a different timeline from our own, and is due for release in October 2023 in the UK and February 2024 in the US.
Old New York Books
# Title Year
1 Golden Hill 2016
Standalone Novels
# Title Year
1 Light Perpetual 2021
2 Cahokia Jazz 2024
Short Story Collections
# Title Year
1 True Stories and Other Essays 2019
Non-Fiction Books
# Title Year
1 Cultural Babbage 1996
2 I May Be Some Time: The Story Behind the Antarctic Tragedy of Captain Scott 1996
3 The Child that Books Built 2002
4 Backroom Boys 2003
5 Red Plenty 2007
6 Unapologetic 2012
Francis Spufford Anthologies
# Title Year
1 The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings 1989
2 The Devil 1992
3 Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration 1999
4 The Antarctic 2007